Calzaghe WBO reign, "a decade of dross"

I was at the Woodhall fight supporting Richie. Like you I was immensely impressed by Calzaghe. Only Fighter to beat Richie up in his career amateur or pro. He looked like he'd been in a car crash afterwards.

 

Any Champion who reigns as long as Calzaghe did is going to have a fair amount of dross on his record. There is some real quality on there too. The Robin Reid verdict was a steal though.

 

I place a lot of that blame on Frank Warren, he did exactly the same with Hatton. Imagine if Hatton and Calzaghe were with today's Hearn - imagine what their careers would have been

Also Calzaghe is one of the most ducked fighters in boxing, has been very unlucky with injuries, and fought the best opponents available. Contrary to belief.



Bernard Hopkins

"A teleconference was set up in my office in New York for July 30trh, 2002, and on the call was myself, Don King who was in the room, Frank Warren and Bernard Hopkins' lawyer, Arnold Joseph. Along with Arnold was a woman named Linda Carter, who was there on behalf of Bernard. We asked Arnold if Bernard wanted to fight Joe Calzaghe and we asked him how much money would he want if he did. The response we got was $3million and the fight would have to take place in the United States. After a little scratching of the head, we said 'Okay, done.' Frank Warren agreed on the spot, DOn King agreed and we agreed so as far as we were concerned all parties were singing off the one hymm sheet. Arnold excused himself with Linda and I can only assume it was to call Bernard. Either that day or the next day, they came with a new demand: $6million, dobule the sum that had been agreed, the deal blew up.....he had then and still has no desire to fight Joe Calzaghe, that much is pretty clear.

Joe gets criticised sometimes for not having fought the big-name Americans, but in this case the fault has never rested with him."

- Jay Larkin, then Showtime TV Network's Senior Vice-President of Sports and Event Programming.



Sven Ottke

"We made two career high offers to Ottke's camp to fight in Germany, even though we'd seen what had happened with (Robin) Reid and (Charles) Brewer. Both were refused without any negotiation. That told me all I needed to know." - Frank Warren



Roy Jones Jr

I dont have that quote from Roy that everyone chucks around. The one where Roy says there's too much risk in fighting Calzaghe because he isnt a big enough name in the states. It's safe to say that the fight was never on the cards, they were never in the same division at the right time. Had Calzaghe broken through earlier maybe we would have seen this fight.



Thomas Tate

One of the more recognisable names on Roy Jones Jr's resume was scheduled to fight Calzaghe in 2004 but Tate pulled out 5days before hand with an injury forcing Joe to find a short-term replacement in Mger Mkrtchian.



Glen Johnson x2

Joe Calzaghe has had 2 scheduled fights with the Road Warrior, but has had to pull out from each with injuries. One with a wrist injury, the other with a back injury.
I've brought this up simply because not only is Glen Johnson a world class fighter and a very good name to have on Calzaghe's resume, but also because it was originally the second Glen Johnson fight that Joe pulled out of, that caused the infamous Sakio Bik fight. The fight that all Calzaghe haters talk about. Joe's hand healed up a month later at which time Glen Johnson was not available anymore. Joe was already trained so they found the highest ranked available contender, which was Sakio Bika. He didnt do it on purpose guys, he didnt purposely lose the momentum from the Lacy win to fight journeymen, **** happens.



Peter Manfredo Jr

Joe Calzaghe took this fight not to duck good opposition, but to improve his profile in the USA. Manfredo is well known over here in the UK, more well known in the USA. He decided that boosting his profile in the USA to get bigger fights out there in the future was better than defending his IBF belt in a forced mandatory against Rob Stieglitz (who?) which lets be honest would have been as easy as the Manfredo fight.



Lacy accuses him of ducking

"Joe Calzaghe is a disgrace. I dont believe this injury is legit. He never, ever wanted to fight Jeff Lacy. I suspected all along that Joe didnt want any of this. I never thought they'd fight us"

- Gary Shaw, 12 September 2005.





Regarding the 7 former world champions that Calzaghe faced. He tried to fight them when they had the titles. Robin Reid didnt want to know Calzaghe when he was WBC champion. As soon as he lost the belt, he clamoured Calzaghe because he had a title then and not him. If anything, fighting a former world champion who has just lost on points for instance, you dont get as big a payday, you dont get another belt. Everything to lose and not much to gain. So credit to Calzaghe. Regarding the people who he didnt fight, people like Eric Lucas and Many Siaca, so what ? Calzaghe would have annihilated nearly everyone at the time and fought better competition IMO such as Brewer and Mitchell.

Had Calzaghe beaten these guys when they had the belts what would people be saying then ? "8 time world unified champion, won all 4 major belts, only person in division ever, Calzaghe top50 ATG"

Instead we get people criticising Calzaghe's resume without knowing all the facts, just because they dont see any massive names. Thats why I laugh when I see posts saying his resume is awful - it's doesn't match his ability or what could have been, correct. But if the injuries hadn't taken place and he had a more ambitious promotor things would have been a lot different.

 

Thomas Tate was at his best in about 91-92, and even then he wasn't anything special at all.

Frank Tate however was very very very good.

 

Agreed. The rest of what they said was on point though.

That said, Lewis gets a lot of credit for beating old Tyson when the reality was he hadn’t been the same since leaving prison and he was also shot to pieces by that stage.

 

Problem with that comparison is that Lewis himself was old (even older than Tyson) and the fight was both fairly even with the bookies and something everyone wanted to see.

Joe was still considered an elite fighter but Jones wasn’t. Everyone knew Joe should win by miles and he did. Plus there were about half a dozen if not more opponents people wanted to see above Jones.

That’s my feeling regarding Calzaghe. I know every fight cannot be a super fight but I’ve said for a long time that a great CV isn’t just built on the handful of massive fights you have but also clearing out those opponents just below that level. And I don’t think he did that.

 

He was 39-0, WBA and WBC champion and Calzaghe at nearly 36 years old easily beat him. Then coming straight off a beating by Andre Ward he beat Froch comprehensively.

 

Tyson hadn't been the same since 1987, that's 15 years.

 

None of those fights involving Calzaghe or Froch were easy. The deserved winners won but they were all tough fights with plenty of success for the eventual loser. None of them were Calzaghe Lacy or Froch Bute style affairs.

 

I rate kessler tbh. He was a good fighter. Dont think anyone can argue with that. Just not as good as people rate him similar to calzaghe. He was 39 and 0 going in but how many names out of them 39 have you heard of....i counted 3. Guys like andrade. Beyer and another one of similar level. Its hardly a murderer,s row. Guys you,d expect to beat if you we,re good tbh. If joe is the supposed goat at the weight surely its not off the back of beating guys that had only beat beyer and andrade.

Hate to be negative about joe....because the guy was class. As was kessler. Just no sure we,re talking sbout greatest of alltime talents at that weight etc.

 

Still to this day and for the eternal seethers

AND STILL, the undefeated World Champion, The Pride of Wales - Joooooooooooooooooooe Calzagheeeeeeee

 

I think the fact it was even with the bookies is down to naivety. A bit like how Haye was favourite vs Bellew despite having suffered several career ending injuries. Granted that is with a dose of hindsight.

A look at Tyson’s wins post prison and it was a lot of smoke and mirrors for me. His style was never going to last into his 30s then you add the lifestyle.

I see your point though.

 

Lewis-Tyson was not fairly even with the bookies (https://squaremile.com/sport/lennox-lewis-mike-tyson)

Other articles quote Lewis as being as short as 4-11. In a two horse race that's a clear favourite, although if Tyson was around 2-1 that's live underdog territory rather than rank outsider.

That said, Jones was a shot fighter against Calzaghe and the win was pretty meaningless. A year later Jones was getting blasted out in a round by Danny Green, and was a name on a record by that point in his career.

 

I think we’ll have to agree to disagree about the odds on Lewis Tyson. The first article I’ve found (seems the same as the one above) has Lewis at 2/5 with Tyson 7/4 going into the day of the fight. That’s ‘fairly even’ for boxing.

 

There’s probably a long and drawn out discussion on odds and probability as they relate to one on one sporting contexts, but not one we really need to get into

In terms of the original point, I agree that Jones is not a meaningful win on Calzaghe’s record.